3 ms·

If they are so smart, why do they say so many dumb things?

• debacle 3y ago
  Because their political objectives are completely tangential to what most of the apolitical public believes elected officials are motivated by.
• rootusrootus 3y ago
  It's like Jeopardy. Notice that pretty much any halfway knowledgable adult can answer most of the questions on the show? Now try to become an actual contestant. It takes real intelligence to convince millions of people to support you, and the skill to talk at their level and pretend to care about things in the same way they do. I have to remind myself of this -- when a politician says something stupid, it isn't because they are actually stupid, it's because they know who they are trying to talk to. So my gripe isn't really with the politician. I may not like Trump, but the more important underlying questions are who supports him and why. If not him, it'll just be someone else, because those people have a viewpoint and they'll vote for someone that matches it.
  • AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    The other thing to keep in mind with politicians is that they spend all day talking and then reporters choose the six words to quote in a story based on whether they want to make them sound like a genius or an idiot. Nearly every time you hear a politician quoted as saying something outrageous it turns out to be some ambiguous or inarticulate wording they didn't intend that way or something that was just maliciously taken out of context. Because motivating the opposition isn't in their interest. Trump is an unusual exception because he says things in context that sound outrageous out of context on purpose in order to get people to talk about him, and reporters keep lining up to fall in the trap like it's a ride at an amusement park.